Greece nominates new privatisation agency chief, third in seven months

2 Min Read

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece has nominated a new chairman to take over at its privatisation agency after the dismissal of its previous head last month, the finance ministry said on Saturday.

Constantine Maniatopoulos was named to head privatisation agency HRADF, where asset sale delays and shortfalls in targeted revenues have been a source of headaches for Greece’s international lenders overseeing the country’s 240 billion euro bailout programme.

Maniatopoulos, head of state real estate agency ETAD, will be the third chairman at HRADF in the last seven months. A parliamentary committee will have to discuss his appointment before it is approved, the finance ministry said.

Resignations at HRADF have been a setback to efforts by Athens to push through an ambitious reform and privatisation programme in a bid to meet bailout targets that are key to the country’s debt sustainability.

Greece dismissed the agency’s previous chairman, Stelios Stavridis, in August after a newspaper reported that he had used the private plane of a businessman who had just acquired a state company to go on holiday.

Stavridis’s predecessor, Takis Athanasopoulos, stepped down after he was charged by a prosecutor with breach of duty over his former role as chairman of a state utility.

Maniatopoulos, 72, has an engineering background and is a board member at think tank IOBE. He has previously chaired the board at Greece’s biggest port, Piraeus (OLP), and worked for the European Commission’s Energy department.